This post is about voting rights: the frontal assault on these rights in many of the 50 states – a commonly used number is 250 proposals to amend rights to vote in assorted ways, by the Republican Party.  In the other corner is HR 1, a Congressional initiative by the Democrats to at minimum secure existing voting rights to all eligible, and hopefully an expansion of those rights under the U.S. Constitution.  The battle is visible; the outcome is uncertain.  Citizens will make the difference in this issue.  Some background, and a recommendation follow.

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Repression isn’t new in the U.S.

Friday night I was watching Chris Hayes on MSNBC, and saw this segment, which I found very interesting.  It is about Nathan Bedford Forrest.  I hope you can watch it,  here is the link, about 7 minutes.

If you can’t access the link, Forrest was the First Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and a bust of him has been in the Tennessee State Capitol since the 1930s.  A State Commission ruled that the bust needed to go, and some state legislators want to abolish the commission (which they created).  I suppose this goes along with the current ‘cancel culture’ narrative now in vogue.  Leading the charge to move the statue is a Memphis state legislator – a young African-American woman.

The piece caused me to think about an old book I found on the family farm in North Dakota after my Uncle died.  It’s title “The Clansman” intrigued me at the time.  It was by Thomas Dixon and it included photos of the then-upcoming racist film, “The Birth of a Nation” (1915).  So it must have been a reprint of the 1905 book.

I’ve read the book, actually had it restored and have written about it at this blog earlier in 2020.  What I said then, remains my opinion.  Here is the 2-page forward in the book: “To the Reader”: Clansman, Forward 1904.

This brings me to the word “offense”, which titles this piece.  My old unabridged comes in handy at times like this:

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It is clear, on many fronts, in many states, that there is an orchestrated attack which are attempting  to bring back the old, whatever that was.  January 6 was a primary example; hundreds of attempts to restrict access to voting in many states are others.  And on and on.  You can find in the definitions above descriptive words for all of these efforts.

The Republicans have gone on the offense to make voting more difficult for certain voters.

I happen to be on the other side in this current war; and it is my opinion that I am on by far the strongest side.  Evidence is strong, starting with 81,000,000 votes in November; and an approval rating for the now-gone past-president which never reached 50%, regardless of what was counted in the survey.  Further, the base of the angry army probably never exceeded one-fourth of the electorate.

Years ago, in 1974, I found myself in an organization which was under attack by a competing organization which was considerably smaller, but very aggressive.  We were considered vulnerable, and we felt vulnerable.  I can remember the day the tables turned, and it was based on a decision we made: we had been put on the defensive, and we decided to go on offense.  The election came and we prevailed with about 60% of the vote.  Apparently, we had made our case.

There are many ways to go on offense.  Take your pick.  And act.

Things are different now than they were in 1865 and the years that followed.  The KKK and others killed emancipation of black men.  Later came the monuments to the confederacy.  1915 was the year the film, Birth of a Nation was released (and the Clansman novel reprinted).  There was a new President, a Democrat, Woodrow Wilson, who was also a racist.  A World War was raging, and America was going to be pulled into it, which exacerbated tensions.  The U.S. essentially occupied Haiti from 1915-34...it’s treatment of Haiti essentially continuation of the slave tradition of France and the United States.

There were other things that happened then.  Women got the right to vote in 1920.

Fast forward, and finally civil and human rights began to have their day in our own country.  It was a difficult struggle.  As Martin Luther King declared shortly before he died: “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

Change takes effort.  It is not free.  The bitter past will not come back unless we allow its return.  And the avatars of permanent change will be young people, women, persons of color, all assisted by tens of millions of us who are suspect by virtue of our age, gender and skin color.

It will take work, but like the African-American woman legislator in Memphis yesterday, we can make change happen by shining a light on the injustice that still exists.

Be part of the change you wish to see.

Go on the offense.

POSTNOTE March 22: The bulk of this post was written before March 21.  Sunday evening, March 22, we watched the last of a six-part mini-series on Abraham Lincoln on CNN.  The last segment began with the assassination of President Lincoln, and the ensuing disintegration of family and dream of emancipation in the United States.  It was essentially along the lines of the earlier text above.  What would Lincoln have thought?  Would there have been different outcomes had he lived?

Personally, I think Martin Luther King got it right – “the arc of the moral universe”.  MLK was rooted in reality. He had a dream, but he knew it would not be easy, indeed it would be dangerous, and he paid with his life.

My Dad loved sayings.  One of them that comes to mind, that he administered on me more than once, is this: “Quitters never win; winners never quit.”  Vince Lombardi apparently coined the phrase.  Good enough for me.

POSTNOTE March 26: The following two items languished in the ‘draft’ file, but are too worthwhile to delete.  

“Lobbying”: Some days ago a friend who is active in Politics sent me this podcast, which I think is accessible by anyone.  I would recommend listening to the program, which is one hour.

My friend says this: “Steven Pearlstein Discusses the Left’s ‘Progressive Paradise’ and the Partisanship of Covid Relief. The similarities to our state legislature (MN) are remarkable. If you get a chance to listen, let me know what you think. And I wonder if you recognize the change that Pearlstein describes.”

Women’s Suffrage: March 8, was International Women’s Day.  Sunday, March 7, was the 56th anniversary of the Selma-Montgomery march for voting rights, described powerfully here by Heather Cox Richardson..

My friend, Jane Peck, posted a comment at my International Women’s Day post, as follows ” I’d like to invite everyone to watch the 25 minute video made of our show, “Votes for Women! Rally 1920“. It focuses on 5 Minnesota suffragists. We four actors had paid engagements to tour this show around MN this year, but Covid interfered.  I wrote and directed it through History Alive Lanesboro. You can find a link to watch it on our website https://historyalivelanesboro.org  . We’d really like to share it with you all!”  

Jane’s profession has been historical reenactment, especially dance, for many years.  As for many others in the performance business, Covid-19, has severely interfered with Jane’s work.  Do take the time to accept her gift.

Women finally got the right to vote in 1920, which today seems astonishing.  Slaves had been emancipated over 50 years earlier, and theoretically freed male slaves did have the franchise, though we know what happened during reconstruction and in the first half of the 20th century.

It is a statement of the obvious that women are every bit as diverse in opinions, etc., as are men.  All the rest is argument.  The group I am watching most closely are younger women of color who are making a big difference and taking a back seat to no one.  Life isn’t perfect – it will never be.  But I’m pretty certain we’ll not be making a trip back to 1860, or 1915, or pre-1950s.  Each era has brought change, sometimes small, sometimes large.  But there’s no going back, and I’m glad of that.

Usually in this little corner of the world called Thoughts Towards a Better World I have one or two opinions in progress.  As I write this is the 7th in the draft file.  It is that kind of week.

I title this one “Relationships”.

Top of the list is the U.S. Intelligence Community Assessment on Foreign Threats to the 2020 U.S. Federal Elections.  You can read it here.   Just Above Sunset summarizes its findings in last nights post, “From Russia With Love”.   These are not Twitter-length.  Take some time to at least scan through them.

Then there is the tragic murder spree in Georgia, which left 8 people, 6 who were Asian-American, and 7 women, dead.  And the resurgence of fear-mongering about foreigners coming across the border, especially from Mexico and Central America.  It is all about fear, period.

Personally, this week, I had a chance to take a mini-deep dive into the humanitarian crisis of the YAZIDI’s of Iraq.  Last week I watched on-line the film, “On Her Shoulders” about a young Yazidi woman, Nadia Murad, who has become the face of her beleaguered people, threatened with extinction by ISIS in northwest Iraq.

Nadia was a co-winner of the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize, and her website, Nadia’s Initiative, is here.  The film is available on Amazon Prime and is well worth your time.

Thursday night, 15 of us engaged in conversation with Abid Shamdeen, Yazidi, who is Executive Director of Nadia’s Initiative.   He, like Nadia, was very impressive, and informative.

One aspect of the story that most engaged me was the Yazidi religious philosophy, which seems well described in a Huffpost article seven years back.  At the time, the article estimated Yazidi’s to number about 600,000 (roughly the population of North Dakota).  Their natural area was in northwest Iraq, in the area of Mt. Sinjar.  They are neither Christian nor Muslim nor any other commonly known religion and this made them a target of ISIS.

Each of us who had the opportunity to see the film, and to meet Abid on-line would have our own individual impressions, and I hope some of the folks will share their impressions as comments here.

For me, I saw in Nadia a young woman thrust into a leadership role flowing out of violent and tragic circumstances.  History is full of unsung heroes like Nadia – people who didn’t intend to become noted; people who often perished in the process.  Her life script, as she articulated it herself, did not have her testifying at the United Nations, or receiving a Nobel Peace Prize.

Then there is the matter of being a refugee.  For the Yazidi’s, outside of their neighboring countries,  Germany was a major destination.   The Norwegian Refugee Council has a very interesting graphic about refugees, which you can access here.  Note how the U.S. compares.

There are many opportunities to learn from the above, and other current and past events.

We’re in all sorts of relationships, from personal, to community, to state, to nation, to the entire planet.  We’re in this world together.

COMMENTS: 

from Gail: Personally, I thought that “On Her Shoulders” was the most boring documentary I’ve ever seen – just Nadia speaking at various places, saying the same thing.  I hadn’t been aware of the plight of the Yazdis, so I appreciate the film for that; but it could have been so much more interesting and informative if it had provided a broader context.

Today Congress passed the stimulus bill today, probably with no Republican votes.  There will be talk about numbers too large for us to comprehend: $1.9 Trillion; national debt of $29 Trillion, on and on.

I keep thinking of perspective, on several grounds.  (There are numerous sources of data.  My choices, below, are not ‘cherry-picked’ by ideology.  I basically picked the first one I saw in internet search which seemed reasonably credible.)

Here’s the U.S. deficit data over the past few years.

Here’s the average American personal debt.

Then there’s the American wealth relative to the rest of the world: Wealth of UN Countries.  Note the column headings and look specifically at the United States data (which is from 2017).  We remain far and away the wealthiest country, but the inequity in wealth within our country has increased.

And that wealth in America is increasingly concentrated in the very richest Americans.

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I’d encourage you to look at the charts, and to give them context relating to yourself, and those around you who you know, family, friends, other.

Think outside the box – how does someone opposite of you in philosophy think, and why.  We are a dangerously divided country.  I’m not saying one side is right, the other wrong.  But there are polar opposite views.  Personally, I think today’s action in Congress was outstanding, and needed.

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Some thoughts:

Even with the pandemic, the U.S. is incredibly wealthy.  Among the United Nations countries – 193 of them – the U.S. has about 4% of the world population, and nearly one-fourth of the world’s wealth.

As to debt, that too is relative.  American personal debt is about 14 trillion dollars – home mortgage, credit card, etc., etc.  That is serious money, granted.  The national debt about double.  (See next paragraph).

What is never said is that debt is what fuels the American economy.  I’m no recommending that but I think that is true.  The rare individual who pays with cash is, in a sense, not a patriot. We’re accustomed to debt.  We depend on debt.  Think back to the first time you had a credit card.  It’s not ancient history.  What role does credit play in your life today.  Think back to the home(s) you lived in, or your grandparents, and compare them to the very large homes even first time homebuyers demand in these days.

One of the old sayings that comes to mind today is “nest egg” – the savings account.  If you’re fortunate, and most everyone who reads this is very fortunate, you have a rainy day fund of some size set aside.  Everybody has a different idea of what this should be.  I knew a person who literally had almost no furniture because she’d been advised that she needed $5 million to retire.  She was obsessed with saving for the future.  I’m being only a little dramatic here.  She had no perspective.

There are examples of course, on the other end of this.  People who will consider the stimulus as mad money.  Most of us are between the poles.

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Here are the main data points over the last 20 years as I see them.

1. Huge outlays to pay for war in the wake of 9-11-01.  We’re still engaged.
2. The near collapse of the American Economy in late 2008, in large part by careless fiscal management particularly in the arena of real estate.
3. The stimulus to restore the economy in 2009, which probably should have been greater.
4. The immense and ill-advised tax cuts in 2017, which aggravated conditions and were fuel for very large increases in the national debt in the previous four years.
5. The impact of Covid-19, now in its second year.

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Today is a single step.  As the President likes to say, “we are all in this together”.

POSTNOTE 1, March 11: Yesterday, each member of Congress had one minute to make a final argument about the bill described above.  There are 435 members of the House of Representatives.  That is over seven hours if anything went perfectly.  It is a huge opportunity for sound bites, that can be produced by anybody, for anyone, at great length, posted anywhere, said at any meeting….

I made my very imperfect attempt – how I saw it – above.

In the end, the real “legislators” are, really, every one of us, the vocal and the quiet, the beneficiaries.

A democracy is ‘we, the people’.  We truly elect our redemption or our doom in this temporal world.

Yesterday was extremely significant.  Just Above Sunset, overnight, goes into more detail, trying to condense those 435 comments (which also must include the 100 Senators on the other side of the Capitol.)

Just Above Sunset: “Doing some good”.

Today, March 12, is the one year anniversary of the Covid-19 Pandemic.  The date is as determined by the World Health Organization (WHO), and I yield to The WHO Director General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, for his remarks, which you can see/read here.  We are a part of, not apart from, the rest of the planet.  We survive by working together for solutions.

POSTNOTE 2, March 11: Already, the folks who voted unanimously against the package, are fashioning ways to take credit for it.  It was anticipated.

How much is “$1.9T”, as headlined, for some reason, in today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune.

It is a big number: 1,900,000,000,000 – 1,000 million.

There are, more or less, 330,000,000 Americans, men, women, children.

That is $5,756 per person, surely a large number.

But view it from your own vantage point of your own current debt, particularly if you have a mortgage or a car payment.

In fact, those whose hands wring when talking about this aid package secretly worship debt as a driver of wealth in our society.  It is a secret, untold.

Keep it in perspective, particularly looking at how the money will be used to help the economy recover.

POSTNOTE 3, March 12: It occurred to me that this American Rescue Plan was the second Covid-19 related initiative in Congress.  The first was what was called the CARES Act, passed unanimously by the Senate, and easily and bi-partisan by the House of Representatives in the spring of 2020.  The House vote was more ambiguous than the Senate.  There were only 6 “no” votes, 5 of them Republican in the House; on the other hand, there was a fairly large number of “no information” non-votes in the House of Representatives – it appears about 36 of these in the 435 member chamber, most of these Democrat.  More information on the House split vote is here.

In the American Rescue Plan, there were no Republican Yes votes.

Why the difference in the votes?  A good topic for discussion.

POSTNOTE 4, sent byJeff, March 13: Ron Insana at CNBC, here

An early and continuing part of my daily drive during the Covid-19 year was through portions of nearby suburbs Newport, St. Paul Park and Cottage Grove, and Grey Cloud Island, all of which are along and part of, the Mississippi River environs.

In St. Paul Park is an oil refinery, a long-time fixture there that I knew little about.

My knowledge has ratcheted up lately.  In late January, the Union representing workers  there went on strike, and in recent days the action broadened to information bannering such as freeway exits by another union.  Yesterday, I stopped by one of the bannering sites, and the friendly union members gave me a brief and useful information flier: St. Paul Bldg Trades – Marathon.  This unions newsletter has more information.  As noted in the newsletter, this began as a Teamster Strike, apparently a response to a lockout.  (Such events are rarely as clear as they appear.)

I’m glad I talked with the folks holding the banner Sunday afternoon.  I wish the workers success.  Theirs is no frivolous action.

Summit Ave exit on Hwy 61, St. Paul Park March 7, 2021.

St. Paul Park Refinery Mar 7, 2021

I’ve been a union guy for over 50 years.  I was staff for groups that on occasion went on strike.  I’ve been retired over 20 years.  One time, about 1979, I was President of the Union staff group which went on Strike against the Union that was our employer (it made news).

There’s no crossing of picket lines for me; I honk in support when I go past the pickets.  I don’t pretend to know the specifics of the issues or process at St. Paul Park.  I do know, union members don’t strike for the fun of it.

Anyone who’s ever gone on strike – or been on the other side – knows that a work stoppage is one thing when the walkout occurs; something different to resolve differences and get back to work.  To strike is a difficult decision to make; one with consequences for both sides, which is why strikes are rare.  The players on both sides know the realities.  A path is always found to settlement.  The only question: how long the strike will be.  The enterprise itself is at risk if there is no settlement.  Then everyone is affected.

The workers on Strike against Marathon are out for a reason.  The dispute is probably cast in economic terms – that is something everyone can understand – but likely the real issues are deeper, relating to matters generally described as working conditions.  Regardless, both sides know that once out, they’ve got to get a settlement agreeable to both sides.  In this case, a refinery without workers is as handicapped as a worker without work.

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Unrelated to the above Strike, but at about the same time as the Strike began, I was nurturing an interest in seeing how many of my former Union colleagues I could reconnect with.  I started with old e-addresses, about one-fourth of which were bad addresses (no surprise there), and of the remaining 42, I’ve reconnected with perhaps a dozen, and out of these may come some memories of our union days by Memorial Day.

Some years ago a fellow staff rep, I think it was John B., gave me some photographs someone had taken at a PSA (Professional Staff Association – the staff Union) meeting about 1976 or so.  If you’ve ever wondered what teacher union staff actually looked like 45 years ago, here are over 20 (click to enlarge)  I’ve only labeled myself, though I remember all of those pictured: PSA circa 1976.  We were once young….

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Unions are easy to kick around – you know this.  Having been, and still being, one of the people whose career was representing people in a Union, I know that organized workers are the ones who built and made the prosperous society in which we still live.  Money earned is money which can be spent, a fact often overlooked in the rhetoric about things like minimum wage and anti-union rhetoric.

Unions however named, are like every organization, take your pick, including corporate structures no matter how big or sophisticated.  All organizations of people reflect the strengths and weaknesses of their members and leadership.

When I retired from union work.  I was about 60 years old, which made me old within the union; but now, for me, 60 is just a kid, and when I was with the group in the 1976 PSA pictures above, I was in my 30s, not the oldest nor the youngest.  (The photos were taken at a union meeting at the end of a long day of assorted meetings.)  None of us were ‘fresh’ – in other words, we were tired.  I’m amused at my picture in the group.  I was pretty well exhausted by the days work, and hiding out by the chairs in the corner was a little opportunity to refresh.

A couple of years later I became President of this group and in my term we went on Strike.  As the saying goes, I’ve “been there, done that”.

Having said all this – and this is my message to colleague elders – the world ahead will be made by todays youngsters, not people like ourselves.  Watch the people in their 30s and 40s, especially.  They’ll make the world they’ll like…or hate…in 30 years.

I wish the Marathon workers, through their Unions, the very best.

POSTNOTE March 13:  The labor dispute remains unsettled as of Saturday.  The bannering continues and there seems more public visibility by those striking.  The Union staff photos drew quite a lot of attention.  They were likely taken in 1979, not 1976 as I first thought.  Unions contributed to a better society then, and still do.

1. For the first 140+ years of the United States the inauguration of the President of the United States was March 4.  In 1933, the date was changed to January 20.  I really had no knowledge of this until the current chaos.  It’s just another learning opportunity.  If you wish to learn more, here’s an article from the Library of Congress.  The inauguration of Abraham Lincoln is briefly discussed in this article.  It occurred on March 4, 1861.  As noted in the continuing series on Lincoln (CNN, Sunday night, 9 Central time) Lincoln died by assassination a short time after inauguration for his second term as president.
2. Those who regularly visit this site know that I appreciate and respect and very often refer to the frequent blogs at Just Above Sunset.  The two most recent are especially worth your time: Freeing the Vote and Purist Madness.  [Postnote Mar. 5: also Potato Head Politics.]
3. March 6, Saturday, is my personal one year anniversary of recognizing that Covid-19 was a threat.  I’ll post about my reflections on Saturday.  All previous posts for any month are easily accessed via the archive tab at right.

POSTNOTE:  Coincident with the publication of this blog came an e-mail from Jeff, which I find very interesting.  Jeff: Bruce Bartlett (@BruceBartlett) tweeted at 7:51 AM on Thu, Mar 04, 2021:
Philosophers and public intellectuals have ignored the study of epistemology (the study of knowledge itself; how to tell the difference between fact and opinion etc.) for too long.  More here.  (I also have this article in pdf form – the second page is the last page of the article: Michael Patrick Lynch Boston Review and Michael Patrick Lynch Boston Review (2)